A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 20
Page 11
Fiamma’s eyebrow moved slightly.
“How strange.”
“What is?”
“God’s Right Seat cannot normally use magic. Not unless the spell is perfectly designed for us to use. The divine judgment spell that almost brought Academy City to a complete standstill is kept inside you, but the Soul Arm for supporting its activation should have been destroyed on September thirtieth. And yet…”
“Are you saying you find it surprising that I’ve caused a strange phenomenon?” said Vento tiredly, lifting her heavy hammer onto her shoulder.
Yes:
It was natural to forget because of each of their incredible achievements, but Fiamma and Vento were both still human. Supernatural phenomena that ignored natural laws weren’t things that could be used except through some contrivance. If Vento had grabbed a hammer out of thin air, there must have been a rule or principle that supported such a phenomenon.
In other words.
…Vento can use magic right now…?
Recalling the spell that had knocked out almost every single resident in Academy City, Kamijou paled.
But Fiamma didn’t seem too shocked.
“Still, I’m sure you haven’t successfully recovered your divine judgment yet. And even if you had, its methodology wouldn’t be able to defeat me.”
“Even your ways of thinking about malice and hostility are twisted beyond recognition. I never thought about using something like that on you.”
“Then what will you do?”
“You, of Michael, cannot use your complete power in your current state.”
“Indeed. That is why I desire Sasha Kreutzev and the Imagine Breaker.”
“That right arm,” spat Vento, as if to cut off his prattling. “It must have a usage restriction.”
“…” Fiamma finally stopped talking.
In the silence, the only remaining voice continued on alone:
“After bothering to use it on those small fry, it’s practically breaking apart in mid-use, isn’t it? For sorcerers, wielding supernatural powers is subject to logic. And God’s Right Seat have a hard time using any spells other than ones custom-made for them. Meaning that once your stock runs out, you’re nothing but a human.”
A smile cracked.
It wasn’t Vento.
Fiamma’s lips had pulled away in a slight curve.
“You think so?”
An eerie, chilling pressure emanated from him into the air around him.
Moving the five fingers on his right arm slowly, he spoke.
“You think you can close the gap with me like that?”
“No.”
The handle of the hammer resting on Fiamma’s shoulder floated a little.
Only a few centimeters.
As she made the subtle motion, she declared:
“This is where it gets good.”
Ga-bam!!
A moment later, Fiamma of the Right was knocked straight backward.
Even only a dozen meters away, Kamijou couldn’t immediately grasp what had just happened.
The abnormal part wasn’t the speed, but the scale.
Out of nowhere, a giant structure had appeared, splitting through the snowy earth in the plaza’s center—a sailboat, made of translucent ice. It sprang up on an angle and was about forty meters in total length, but its hull hadn’t completely appeared. It was forty meters with just what was visible now.
With rattling and creaking, the ice cannon affixed to the ship’s side aimed at Fiamma.
What blasted out of it wasn’t the flames of gunpowder, but instead, fine particles of ice.
The icy attack, the polar opposite of Fiamma’s namesake “flame,” wasn’t composed of a mere cannonball; this was a translucent anchor. A clump of ice two or three meters large had stricken Fiamma and careened several kilometers away along with his body.
Ba-grrram!! The sound of the shock wave hit the plaza’s entirety a moment later.
Without any attention to the clamor this caused around them, Vento said:
“…Did you know that in Chioggia, Italy, Biagio Busoni was in command of the Queen of the Adriatic and its escort, the Queen’s Fleet?”
Vento spoke while twirling her giant hammer around in one hand, whether out of some meaning or just a whim. Her voice was low, almost whispering, but she’d probably used magical means to deliver it to Fiamma’s ears.
“It was I who readjusted the Ten Rites of the Holy Spirit to bring it to a usable level. Controlling the entire Queen of the Adriatic spell wasn’t possible, but even I have enough affinity to maneuver part of the great fleet.”
He heard a jingling.
It came from Vento’s tongue.
“Oh, right—one more thing.”
A slender chain, like the sort you’d use for a necklace, extended from it, and at its tip hung a cross.
One made of a clear, almost icelike material.
A cross that looked rather like an anchor.
“In Crossism, there are quite a few stories about calming storms at sea and keeping ships safe. The Son of God did, for example, as did Saint Nicholas. By nature, the aspects I must preside over are wind and air, but storms at sea are a combined aspect of wind and water. By going through these stories, I can gain partial influence over water as well…And unlike your complete devotion to fire, I can bring forth more complex and wide-reaching effects.”
A blast went off.
It was the sound of the giant ice anchor igniting with Fiamma caught in it, several kilometers away.
It was no mere gunpowder explosion.
The blast wind manifested in the form of an ice stake hundreds of meters long. The ice’s tip, sharper than any old spear, expanded in all directions, to form ten thousand, then a hundred thousand tips. They bore a huge hole out of the land, and vast amounts of snow and black soil were flung up into the air. It was fortunate that only plains lay within their scope. With that many of them and with that much power, it definitely would have made Swiss cheese out of any underground shelters.
The people in the plaza probably couldn’t comprehend what had just happened. But they seemed keen enough to pick up on the unique energy of battle and bloodlust contained within the icy pincushion that had suddenly appeared. Some even put their hands together, fervently praying for something.
It wasn’t clear from here what had become of Fiamma.
Even whether anyone could manage to find out was a mystery.
That’s how much sheer destructive power it had.
Vento of the Front.
She, too, had possessed insane strength as one of God’s Right Seat, which stood at the pinnacle of two billion followers.
“If you had planned tactics purely to kill me, the result might have been somewhat different. But with your right arm disintegrating as we speak, you can’t defend against that attack,” she mocked, sticking out her tongue with the Soul Arm on it. “You waste too much ammo, you moron…I guess you can’t hear me anymore, though.”
“Is that so? Then I may have brought more to this than you think.”
The voice, its source unknown, put a stop to Vento’s banter.
A moment later.
Ka-boom!! went an explosion. It came from several kilometers away—and it was the sound of the pincushion of ice needles shattering apart from the inside. Calling it a volcanic eruption would have been an understatement. The insane force meant the debris didn’t even rain down over the ground. All of it scattered, carried off by the wind.
The icy pincushion, now in shambles, blasted away in large chunks in all directions. Directions that included the plaza Kamijou and the others were in. It was like the area was raked with artillery fire. Several buildings were flattened, and the people in the plaza covered their heads with their hands and dropped to the ground. Voices rang out, lamenting the incomprehensible calamity and crying in anguish.
As Vento scanned the distance, her brow twisted bitterly.
There was a flash of light.
“I don’t seem able to avoid the disintegration itself, but I have succeeded in stabilizing it.”
Something glittered brightly.
Shining, reflecting…There was something in Fiamma’s right hand giving off light.
He couldn’t see it in detail either, but he had a good guess as to what it was.
The remote-control Soul Arm for Index.
A device that could draw out the knowledge of 103,000 grimoires at any time, in any amount.
“Frankly speaking, there no longer exist any restrictions upon me.”
Vento refused to remain silent, however.
Several cannons went off from the sailboat near her all at once. A second anchor of ice lances, then a third, tore through the air, plunging one after another toward Fiamma.
A far greater cannonade than the one that had flung Fiamma several kilometers away earlier.
But Fiamma, at their landing point, didn’t even bother dodging.
He only did one thing.
Shake his right arm to the side.
“I don’t need brute force.”
That was all.
The roaring of anchors shattering split the air. Some of them fractured in midair, while others stabbed into the ground, missing completely. Along with all of it, an explosion several dozen meters wide broke out.
The sight was like some kind of joke. It all went on shaving away hills and rivers—the very landscape itself.
“It ends with a touch, so I don’t need effort to break my opponent.”
“Shit!!”
Vento hastily repositioned her hammer, muttering something to herself. Maybe she had another trump card in store. Even Kamijou, untrained in sorcery, could sense it was like she was stringing out a cat’s cradle very quickly.
However.
“I don’t need speed.”
A casual voice interrupted all that—by force.
And by overwhelming presence.
“If I swing, it will hit, so I don’t need any effort to aim.”
He couldn’t tell what had happened.
The next thing he knew, Fiamma, who was supposedly kilometers away a moment before, had stepped right up underneath Vento’s jaw. A moment later, her body was flying backward.
Fiamma didn’t stop moving there.
As Vento floated, her chain fluttered after her. Without difficulty, Fiamma grabbed it in midair. The motion was so casual it was like snatching a piece of paper drifting on the wind.
With Vento’s body still flying.
So naturally.
The slender chain couldn’t support Vento’s body weight. Kamijou heard a ripping noise. It was the piece holding the chain tearing off. Off of Vento’s tongue.
There wasn’t time for her to cry out.
The woman clothed in yellow careened several dozen more meters away. She squarely struck the center of the ice sailboat sticking out of the center of the plaza, breaking the giant symbol of cannon fire into two clean pieces, upper and lower.
And at last.
After all that had happened, Vento let out a scream.
“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh?!”
“It’s not like I ripped your whole tongue out. You’re exaggerating— It was just a little tear. And your fading defensive spell probably helped you when you hit that boat of yours.”
Staring at Vento with absolute boredom as she lay screaming a dozen or so meters away, Fiamma tossed the torn-off chain. He swung the third arm poking out of his right shoulder through the air and shattered the translucent cross into pieces.
Pieces from the broken ice sailboat fell toward the plaza, and the residents in the area quickly rolled out of their way. Fiamma didn’t bother glancing in their direction, of course.
“Gh, brgh?! Wh-what…?!”
“It’s simple. What I possess is not the right arm itself, but the strength within it. In Crossism, most ceremonies are done with the right. The archangel Michael brought low the leader of fallen angels with his right hand. The Son of God cured the sick with his right hand. The Bible was written with the right hand—and so on and so forth. What I’m saying is that I can freely utilize that many Crossist supernatural phenomena. You figure out the rest. I’m sure you’re not that dull.”
“That’s…not possible…That right…arm is…”
“Yeah. It’s incomplete. Not normally something I could show off. Still, it’s nothing you need to state with such grandiose tones. God’s Right Seat…no, this whole world, is becoming something more vague in the same way.”
“…?”
“The angel that appeared in an incomplete state during Angel Fall seems to have called itself Misha.”
That was the only thing Fiamma said in anything resembling low spirits.
“Mikhail is another name for Michael, the LIKENESS OF GOD. It isn’t a fitting name for Gabriel, the POWER OF GOD. Despite that, the archangel named itself as Misha. A name that should have been a role in and of itself, created by God. Do you understand how serious a matter that is?
“Also,” continued Fiamma, “supposedly Vento of the Front bears wind, yellow, and Uriel; while Terra of the Left bears earth, green, and Raphael; but this is a deviation as well. Normally, wind applies to Raphael, and earth to Uriel. It’s odd that it’s anything else.”
Vento’s expression looked like her heart had stopped.
Her face appeared to say that the mental damage from a pillar in her own mind being toppled was even greater than the injury to her tongue.
“Nobody notices it.”
Only Fiamma’s words echoed out slowly.
“The world keeps on turning like nothing happened, with no one the wiser. Magic triggers accidentally. Do you understand it now? With it, the four great aspects are beginning to distort, little by little. This world is in a more dangerous situation than you realize. Someone must do something about it.”
“You…mean…?”
Vento shook her head, delivering words even she had no confirmation of.
“Are you saying the Angel Fall left aftereffects of that magnitude?”
“I’m saying the opposite. Only because such a large distortion in natural laws existed to begin with did that ridiculous spell activate in the first place…Get it now? Can I stop explaining?”
Fiamma smirked, then raised his third arm high.
An extremely primitive motion.
Dozens of meters still separated them, but considering his phenomenal strength, that offered zero peace of mind.
However, before the motion could complete, Kamijou charged at Fiamma from the side.
“I have no need…”
Fiamma’s reaction, though, was truly simple.
“…to turn around.”
His arm changed course and swung around.
As if to accomplish its original purpose, it knocked Kamijou to the side. It was like hitting someone with a wooden club—primitive, and therefore, no way past it. Not only his organs but his very spine groaned. Yet, it was strange…if it could crush a giant anchor and destroy an entire sailboat in one hit, it should have reduced a human body to powder.
The role given to it…
Had it automatically calculated and chosen the optimal force with which to bat Touma Kamijou away?
It was different from a saint, who overwhelmed with strength or speed.
To give an analogy to an RPG battle, say you had a list of commands, like fight, defend, spell, and item—and also an absurd option that just said defeat.
Most likely, Fiamma would respond in the same way against Kanzaki and Acqua as well and dominate them in the same way. Even if he had less speed, even if he had less muscle power, it wouldn’t matter. This altogether absolute “strength” ignored all actions taken by an enemy leading up
to the very last instant and then defeated them in one fell swoop. It was almost like pushing a giant wall and knocking down a hill of sand made by a child.
Brawling with Fiamma head-on wouldn’t get him the win.
But he couldn’t retreat, either.
If he left things like this, Fiamma would finish Vento off. He wouldn’t necessarily let Lesser or Elizalina go, either. And he’d definitely take Sasha Kreutzev away.
And above all.
In Fiamma’s hand was the Soul Arm that controlled Index.
“…”
Kamijou tasted blood—maybe his lips had split.
Ignoring it, he got to his feet again.
He tightly gripped his fist.
“You’re an amusing one.”
Fiamma glanced his way, keeping Vento well within his firing range.
“How many people have you stood up for? How many incidents have you used that fist to resolve? You really are amusing. I suppose the most amusing thing about you is how you let others catalyze you into putting yourself into dangerous positions and then, in the end, accumulate all the results and rewards for yourself.”
“What…are you trying to say?”
“Do you have the conviction that your actions are truly right?”
Fiamma slowly moved his arm.
His third arm.
The incredibly irregular item that probably couldn’t be explained by mere magic or science.
“Fundamentally, there’s nothing different about my actions, which you’re enraged over, and what you’ve done up until now. I use my right arm to resolve my own problems, and you use your right arm to resolve incidents that happen around you. By shattering all the hard work people have so desperately done, too. Nothing separates our methods. And I have the conviction—conviction that my own actions will bring about an achievement of absolute good.”
“…Are you telling me to abandon Index after you’ve made her suffer so much?” Kamijou shot back, not hesitating for a second. “That’s a load of bull. You used the people of the Roman Orthodox Church for your own convenience, instigated a coup d’état in the United Kingdom by having France put more pressure on them, and you call that absolute good? Are you fucking insane?”
“Then you would call yourself good for putting a stop to it?”